
1. Do you have any unusual habits that either aid or detract from your writing?
Jeff: I would like to think that I am able to almost clinically detach myself from American life—sort of like a mannequin watching the crowds pass by, staring at me, then moving past. I hope I am able to write from an observational posture, scientist-like, without mucking up my prose with too much subjectivity.
Jann: Detraction: Steaming fresh vegetables while preparing for a wholesome meal. Aid: When developing character’s ideology attachments and romantic themes, I often take long nature walks, armed with a spiral notebook and small sack of cashews.
2. Say you’re writing the best scene you’ve ever written. It’s poignant, it’s heart wrenching, it’s utterly perfect. Every sentence makes you sob with the beauty of it all. You are so close to finishing, but you need a moment to think of the next crucial line of dialogue. And then somebody comes into the room and peers over your shoulder. “Hey, whatcha working on?” they yell into your ear, words garbled by a mouthful of the special snack you were saving for yourself as a reward for finishing the most fantastic scene in the history of ever. How do you respond?
Jeff: I am so process and draft-oriented that such a disturbance would probably be helpful to me. I’m no sculpture, but for me, writing an essay or story is like chiselling a pre-existing form out of marble or granite. I can be interrupted, because the momentary pause may allow me to get a better cut, a cleaner stroke, after review or further contemplation.
Jann: I sensibly collect myself and my fractured thought. After a brief sigh, I comment to the disrupter that I am writing a letter of complaint to the city regarding the disruptive nature of automated garbage pick-up.
3. When asked when they first discovered their love for writing, most people will say their childhood. So I won’t waste your time by asking something I already pretty much know the answer to. What I want to know is when you decided to go pro, instead of just writing as a hobby.
Jeff: I had written a few “minor” academic articles throughout my career. But when “The Elusive It” [a review on my own teaching career and my inability to find a professor’s job at a four year school] was published as a Views Piece on Insidehighered.com back in 2007, I sensed that I may have discovered a niche. The numerous blogged comments to that piece gave me great confidence to continue writing in my “contrarian” vein.4. If you could meet your characters in real life, do you think you’d get along with them?
Jann: My university colleagues provided constructive feedback, critical analysis, and sound advice. I was also encouraged after co-authoring a number of academic pieces.
Jeff: I have met them all in real life—in some shape shifter form another. Some I have loved, some were friends, and all were victims.
Jann: I find the cast is quite entertaining. Guitar Bob Zontarg would certainly be an enjoyable chap to share a beer, and Mr. Allworth is a gentleman worth exploring. I also find favour with Celeste Maria Angelica, the attractive compassionate and committed young revolutionary. The image of her outfitted in traditional jockey attire: knee high polished boots, pink-colored silk blouse, and tan riding helmet, offers a certain appeal.
5. What is one thing that you would like the non-writers in your life to understand about writing?
Jann: The threat of exposing one’s “buried life” can be frightening.
Jeff: When people hear that I have written a novel, they always continue the conversation by saying, “Oh, I’m going to start working on a book too.” I think there is a disconnect between readers and writers—I don’t believe there is a great deal of magic involved in the writing process—the muses are nurtured, so to speak, by practice and hard work. Writing book length fiction, I have discovered, that approaches organic unity—well, my friends, that is hard work.
6. When there is a scene you’ve written that you just adore, do you feel satisfied with a job well done, or are you suspicious that it may actually suck?
Jeff: I come back to my scenes, to my characters, numerous times. When I mentally declare a scene finished, I am comfortable with it. Later I may go back to add some enhancement phrasing [to help connect all the scenes imagery or ideas better], but I never quit till a scene feels “right” or packaged or complete.
Jann: Not really, most critical reads are marginalized by re-writes and personal convictions
7. What is one mistake you’ve made while trying to market yourself and your book(s)? Conversely, what’s one bit of promotion you’ve done that worked out better than expected?
Jeff: An error I continue to make, I think, is that the general reading public is as excited about my work as I am. I’m not sure about the social media, either (twitter, Facebook, linked in). But I am very happy that I have some good working relationships with significant online publications like Cronk News and Insidehighered.com. Writing for them, and trying to meet their high expectations, has given me confidence about a new career as a writer of fiction. I am trying to promote myself as an Op Ed writer turned novelist—we’ll see how this works out.
Jann: On the positive side, writing for on-line publications, like Cronk News and Inside Higher Ed. (i.e., parody poetry, satire) provided a level of satisfaction and boosted confidence.
8. Based on the amount of writer characters Stephen King introduces that wind up inhaling a big old batch of insanity peppers, it seems as though he would have us believe that writing is a dangerous profession. Do you agree?
Jeff: Well, I can list quite a few writers (V Woolf, E. Hemingway, E Poe, S. Plath, her son, just to name a few) who were unable to cope with life. Art, my friends, is powerful and dangerous. I hope I can hold myself together. Hah.
Jann: Dangerous to one’s soul, possibly.
Last but not least, in three hundred words or less, please pimp your latest project.
We believe College Leadership Crisis: The Philip Dolly Affair is the first community college novel. It is funny, educational, powerful, descriptive, and even has several suggestions about how to improve education culture. Each of you hears the whispered truths (about promotions, how funds are used, wasted projects, athletics, and romances). Well, we get right at these issues. And— PDA is a Voice of the Times—we mention Occupy Wall Street, wealth redistribution, and won’t quit in our discussions of leadership buffoonery. Phil Dolly Affair has it all, my friends—romance, poetry, drama, meetings, speeches, and pet ducks. ACH. Wait—there’s more! PDA has socialists, Marxists, Argentine freedom fighters, the JFK assassination, crazed retired professors, and maybe even communists! Thanks.
If you would like to learn more about The Philip Dolly Affair, please visit Jeff and Jann's blog, like them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
CONTEST: The authors will be giving away a novel-companion e-form [PDF] “chapbook” of poetry “voiced” by one of the novel’s characters, panish Professor Jack Frost, to one randomly drawn commenter